BONUS CONTENT: Sketchbook: Dhama Suul

With the top sketch, I feel like I found a head design that I liked, so I started playing around with the body. As a mob boss, I wanted him to have an imposing figure, so I went with a big beefy body. I think I loosely had a walrus in mind in terms of overall feel, so that explains the flippers. I didn’t bother spending too much time on the body design since I knew it would be covered up almost entirely in the actual story, what with it being a freezing climate and all.

With the last two designs, I decided to give the character one last go in terms of different looks. I actually like the one on the left as a design, but it’s a bit goofy looking, so not quite the imposing figure I had planned for Suul. With the one on the right, I went back to a previous head sketch, this time with more of the body filled in, and it clicked for me. I think the wide hammerhead shape just made the head so much more distinctive than the one above it. It’s the sort of thing where, if you saw a bunch of different aliens in a lineup, you’d definitely notice him because of the distinctive hammerhead snout. And that’s what I figured his character should be about… someone who stands out in a crowd.

Discussion ¬

Seeing what is somewhat going on beneath the robes only deepens my thoughts of Suul’s species. Those thick tentacles would not be much for fine manipulation, but that thing is all muscle. So my theory is that Suul’s species might have developed as a brutal race that used force over finesse to bully a lesser race into submission. In turn, they became a race who, once they developed more socially and intellectually, were on the top of a culture based on subservience – whether bought, hired, or enslaved. They are all about manipulation and if that doesn’t work, they smash you in half.